


The Dust and Injury

by Crowgirl



Series: Welcoming Silences [46]
Category: Foyle's War
Genre: Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Non-Chronological, Work, reassurance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 13:07:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6957724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘We never talked about this. What would happen if one of us got hurt.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dust and Injury

Paul gives up trying to push himself to his feet and simply sits, trying to get his breath back. He glances across at Sam who is on one knee, inspecting a long tear in the leg of her trousers. ‘This went well.’

She glances up at him and smiles, a little rueful. ‘Oh, yes. Very easy.’

Paul looks past the pigsty fence to where one constable and Foyle, no doubt cursing heartily, are pursuing the fleeing suspect. He twists around and the second constable, the one who let the suspect slip in the first place, is still standing by the car. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? Get after them!’

‘Sir -- yes, sir!’ The man darts into the snowy field. 

Sam pushes herself to her feet and smacks snow off her trousers. The torn edges of cloth flap raggedly and she kicks her foot against a snowy tussock. ‘I suppose I know what I’m doing this evening.’

Paul laughs and braces his palms on the ground, shifting his weight onto his right knee. It feels sound enough but when he tries to push himself up, his left leg fails to hold at all and he simply flops back onto the snowy ground. 

‘Wait a minute--’ Sam is folding the ragged trouser leg into her sock, making herself a rather uneven-looking puttee, and gives it a final pat before coming to stand in front of him. She hold out her hands and braces her feet. ‘Lets get you up.’

‘Sam, you don’t have-- Just get me one of those boards--’ He points to a stack of frost-streaked lumber sitting by the near corner of the pigsty.

Sam is about to say something when there’s a shout from across the field and they both turn to look in time to see Constable Spurling launch himself in a superb flying tackle and bring the suspect crashing to the ground in a flurry of snow and dirt. Paul resists the urge to applaud but only barely. 

Spurling drags the man to his feet and Constable Westlock comes up in time to grab the man’s other arm. Pinned between two solid members of the Hastings force, Greene finally stops fighting, and Paul sees him go limp for a minute. Foyle reaches the little group just then and Sam turns back to Paul, clapping her reddened hands together and reaching down to him. ‘Come along, sergeant. Can’t sit around here all day.’

By the time Paul is on his feet, unsteady but standing, constables, prisoner, and Foyle are nearly back to them. ‘Stay still,’ Sam says, and starts walking around him, dusting snow and earth off his coat. Paul works on finding his balance again, gingerly testing his left leg until he’s sure it will bear at least a little weight. His knee had twisted as he went down; the prosthetic hasn’t actually shifted, but it was a damn close thing and he can feel the pull in the muscles up to his hip. 

‘How are you? Miss Stewart?’ Foyle comes up to them.

‘Fine, sir,’ Sam says. ‘Just a little sewing to do tonight.’

Foyle glances down at her torn trouser leg and nods, then looks at Paul. ‘Sergeant?’

‘Fine, sir,’ Paul says automatically just as his knee gives. He staggers a step and Sam catches his arm. He grabs at her hand involuntarily and they manage to keep him on his feet. ‘Thanks -- thanks, Sam -- sorry.’

Foyle’s hands are deep in his overcoat pockets and Paul can see the bulk made by his fists. Before he can say anything or he and Sam can move, Foyle spins on his heel back towards the constables and Greene, now only a few yards away. ‘Mr. Greene.’

‘Mr. Foyle.’ Greene shakes his slightly shaggy hair back out of his eyes.

‘Had you seriously injured either Sergeant Milner or Miss Stewart, I’d be sending you directly to London. They’re very interested in the black market at the minute. As it is, I’m going to hand you on to DI Warner at Brighton--’ Greene groans. ‘--who I believe is an old friend of yours.’ Foyle turns to Westlock. ‘Constable, I’ll speak to you tomorrow in my office at eight.’

Westlock’s face pales but he salutes gamely. ‘Sir.’

‘Well done, Spurling.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Get him out of here.’ Foyle waves them on to the second police car and turns back to Paul and Sam.

‘Sir -- You can’t send him to to Warner. You know what he’s like.’ Paul lowers his voice. Warner’s a good detective, long on the force, but he has a flash-paper temper and a particular dislike for Greene for reasons Paul doesn’t understand. Warner and Greene have mixed it up several times before and Warner had never been able to make a charge stick for longer than a few months of jail time. If he got his hands on Greene now with the evidence the Hastings police had assembled over the last few weeks, Warner was very likely to lose his temper entirely.

‘Can’t I.’ Foyle’s voice is expressionless. ‘I’d send Westlock, too, if I could.’

‘It wasn’t--’

‘He failed to lock the cuffs properly and didn’t have the man in the car or under restraint,’ Foyle says, every word clipped and sharp. ‘Greene could have seriously injured either of you.’

‘He didn’t have a gun,’ Sam points out.

Foyle lifts an eyebrow at her. ‘You should know better than that by now, Miss Stewart.’

‘We’re both fine,’ Paul says. ‘Just send him to London and be done with it.’ 

Foyle looks at him for a long minute, then walks past without saying anything. 

* * *

Paul makes it a point to get into the station before Foyle -- it takes a bit of maneuvering but he does it -- and check on something that had occurred to him during the drive back. The only transport van had been lent out to the station in Bexhill and he didn’t think it had come back yet. It hasn't. The alternative is to send Greene and an escort with Sam as driver and, no matter how angry he is, Paul is sure Foyle would never agree to that. 

He hears the doors bang open behind him and steps out of the way past the desk, down the hallway towards the office. He hears Foyle ask the constable at the desk something -- undoubtedly inquiring about the van -- and the rest of the conversation he can guess at. 

His knee is aching but there’s no sharp pain, no feeling of bleeding which he knows is a false sensation from nerves no longer there but is usually an indicator of worse pain to follow. He has his hat and coat off by the time Foyle follows him in and -- bad sign -- shuts the door immediately.

‘The Bexhill lads are always a bit slow,’ Paul offers, sitting down and trying not to wince when he does it. He knows he hasn’t been entirely successful when Foyle doesn’t answer him, just turns to take off his coat.

* * *

Paul gives up first. At least, that’s how he thinks of it. The silence in the office is starting to feel like something he’s breathing in and, if he doesn’t get ice on his knee soon, he’s not going to be able to walk tomorrow. If he takes it slow, the walk home might help loosen the muscles of his thigh.

It is, perhaps, a little cowardly, he thinks as he does it, to wait until Foyle is out of the room before he leaves. They don’t often leave the station at the same time so there isn’t anything _that_ odd about him going before Foyle, but under the circumstances… Still, if this is going to turn into an argument, he’d rather do it at home.

* * *

‘There’s tea in the kitchen,’ Paul calls when he hears Foyle shut the front door. 

He hears Foyle come into the room and there’s a moment of silence before he speaks. ‘I hope you’re pleased to have gotten Greene off the hook.’

‘He isn’t off the hook.’

‘London’s claimed him -- they’re sending a car for him tomorrow.’

‘Good. Then he’ll be off our hands.’ Paul twists around in his chair to look at Foyle. ‘That’s what you wanted anyway.’

Foyle’s mouth twists but all he says is: ‘Do you want anything from the kitchen?’

‘No.’ Paul turns back in his chair, rubbing his thumb along the spine of the book open on his knee. ‘Thanks.’

He listens to Foyle move around the kitchen and lets his head fall back, his eyes close. He hears a rattle of china, the soft sound of the cosy being dropped on the counter, and then the _swish_ of the door as Foyle comes back. ‘How’s your leg?’

‘All right.’ Without opening his eyes, Paul gestures towards the hot water bottle adapted into a cold pack that’s currently a soggy, half-melted lump on the hearthrug by his foot. 

There’s a moment of silence before Foyle says, a little stiffly: ‘I -- thought he had hurt you rather badly.’

Paul blinks his eyes open. ‘No -- well, no worse than when I take a bad step.’

Foyle, standing by the other side of the fireplace, nods slowly, looking down at his cup of tea. 

Paul sits forward. ‘We never talked about this. What would happen if one of us got hurt.’ _Doing our job_ is the part he leaves unsaid. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of it; he had, had nightmares about it more than once. Judging from the expression on Foyle’s face, he has, too. 

‘No.’ Foyle goes to take a sip of tea, pulls a face, and puts the cup on the mantel. He rubs his hands over his face and shakes his head. ‘No, we didn’t. I don’t suppose there’s much to be done about it.’ He smiles a little ruefully. ‘People would wonder why I was suddenly so keen to get you reassigned.’

‘And it wouldn’t solve the problem.’

‘No, it wouldn’t.’ Foyle’s gaze turns vague and Paul can’t tell what he’s looking at any more. Then he shakes his head briskly. ‘So I don’t suppose there’s much to be done about it. I’ll give Westlock a few things to think about tomorrow morning and that’ll be it.’

That isn’t it and Paul’s sure they both know that. What if Spurling or Westlock had thought something odd about Foyle’s behavior, or Paul’s? It was too easy to spin out a tale of one or the other of them -- Westlock would have reason for a grudge after Foyle gave him an earful after all -- watching them ever more closely and putting two and two together until-- 

But where could letting that story spin out in his head out get him? It was all pure supposition on his part; if nothing else, he doesn’t think Westlock is that bright. It might happen; the odds were against it, probably, he hoped, but it might. 

And exposure certainly wasn’t the worst thing that could happen; the worst things made up his nightmares, or those hours at 3 o’clock in the morning when he couldn’t sleep and the regular rhythm of Foyle’s breathing wasn’t enough to soothe him. 

Foyle half-kneels in front of him, one hand on his good knee. ‘Is tea all you’ve had?’

‘A piece of toast.’

‘Not really a proper dinner. I’ll make us something. Any requests?’

Paul shakes his head and leans forward, sliding his hands over Foyle’s shoulders until he can cradle Foyle’s face in his hands. He looks at where his thumbs touch Foyle’s chin, smoothing the pad of his thumb over the straight line of his jaw, and Foyle shifts slightly towards him, his hands resting at the tops of Paul’s thighs. It could be a suggestive move -- Foyle’s fingers curved around the arch of Paul’s hipbone -- perhaps, later in the evening, it will be. For right now, Foyle’s hands are a pleasant weight, a reassurance of presence. The air is warm between them, the soft crackle of the fire the only sound beyond their breathing. 

There’s nothing to say -- what could he say? -- so he kisses Foyle instead, trying to make the touch convey thoughts he’s not sure he could get into words if he spent a week at it.

**Author's Note:**

> Eternal thanks to the Lady [Kivrin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kivrin) for the beta.
> 
> I had an idea some time back for a "Foyle and Milner read to each other" part of this 'verse; blame it on a few too many YouTube videos of Anthony Howell (and on the wonderful and enabling friend who sent them to me!) but, yes, it was going to involve Shakespeare. I thought I'd more or less dealt with it during the Christmas drabble season but, honestly, folks: [click through and read this full sonnet and tell me I really shouldn't revisit this idea.](http://www.bartleby.com/70/50108.html) And it's the source of the title for this piece as well.
> 
> [And let us not forget the most glorious son of rock'n'roll Bexhill on Sea.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtDD_RvhQ_o)


End file.
